INFO 4940/5940: Applied Machine Learning: Methods and Applications

Modified

October 31, 2025

This page contains an outline of the topics, content, and assignments for the semester. Note that this schedule will be updated as the semester progresses and the timeline of topics and assignments might be updated throughout the semester.

WEEK DATE TOPIC PREPARE
Prepare (R)
Prepare (Python)
MATERIALS DUE
1 Tue, Aug 26 Welcome to INFO 4940/5940 πŸ‘©β€πŸ’» Login to Cornell’s GitHub server


πŸ“½οΈ slides 01

Thu, Aug 28 Case study in ML: Property assessment in Cook County πŸ“„ Automated valuation model for all class 200 residential properties in Cook County

Read the sections on Model Overview, Ongoing Issues, and FAQs


πŸ“½οΈ slides 02
⌨️ ae 01
⌨️ hw 00

2 Tue, Sep 2 Make a model πŸ“™ isl - ch 2.1 πŸ“— tmwr - ch 1-2, 4, 6

This will help you learn the {tidymodels} syntax. You can heavily skim chapters 1-2, 4.

πŸ“• pdsh - ch 5.2 - introducing Scikit-learn πŸ“½οΈ slides 03
⌨️ ae 02


Wed, Sep 3



βœ… hw 00 - Python
βœ… hw 00 - R
HW 00 by 11:59pm

Thu, Sep 4 Use your data πŸ“™ isl - ch 5.1
πŸ“™ aml - ch 9-10
πŸ“— tmwr - ch 5, 10 πŸ”— scikit-learn documentation - 3.1 πŸ“½οΈ slides 04
⌨️ ae 03
⌨️ hw 01

3 Tue, Sep 9 Build better training data πŸ“™ aml - ch 6 πŸ“— tmwr - ch 8 πŸ“• pdsh - ch 5.5 - Feature engineering
πŸ”— scikit-learn documentation - 7.1
πŸ“½οΈ slides 05
⌨️ ae 04


Wed, Sep 10



βœ… hw 01 - Python
βœ… hw 01 - R
HW 01 by 11:59pm

Thu, Sep 11 Build better training data πŸ“™ aml - ch 5, 8.1-.3

πŸ“½οΈ slides 06
⌨️ ae 05
⌨️ hw 02

4 Tue, Sep 16 Tune your workflows πŸ“™ aml - ch 11-12 - read ch 11 more closely, lightly skim ch 12

πŸ“™ isl - ch 8.2 - review of ensemble tree methods
πŸ“— tmwr - ch 12-14 πŸ”— scikit-learn documentation - 3.2 πŸ“½οΈ slides 07
⌨️ ae 06


Wed, Sep 17



βœ… hw 02 - Python
βœ… hw 02 - R
HW 02 by 11:59pm

Thu, Sep 18 Evaluate models using appropriate metrics πŸ“™ aml - ch 15 πŸ“— tmwr - ch 9 πŸ”— scikit-learn documentation - 3.4 - know how to implement different metrics at different stages of the ML process (e.g. resampling, evaluating test set performance). You don’t need to know every single metric defined in the documentation. πŸ“½οΈ slides 08
⌨️ ae 07
⌨️ hw 03

5 Tue, Sep 23 Feature selection πŸ“™ isl - ch 6 - read sections 6.2-.3

πŸ“½οΈ slides 09
⌨️ ae 08


Wed, Sep 24



βœ… hw 03 - Python
βœ… hw 03 - R
HW 03 by 11:59pm

Thu, Sep 25 Exploratory analysis πŸ“™ r4ds - ch 10 - even if you use Python, a great overview of common EDA strategies (and easily transferrable to the plotnine implementation)

πŸ“½οΈ slides 10
⌨️ ae 09 - Python
⌨️ ae 09 - R
βœ… ae-09

6 Tue, Sep 30 Project management 🧠 Brainstorm a potential topic for the first project

πŸ“½οΈ slides 11
⌨️ ae 10


Thu, Oct 2 Preprocess your data


πŸ“½οΈ slides 12
⌨️ ae 11
⌨️ hw 04

7 Tue, Oct 7 Explaining models through agnostic approaches πŸ“™ iml - ch 2-3

πŸ“½οΈ slides 13
⌨️ ae 12


Wed, Oct 8




HW 04 by 11:59pm

Thu, Oct 9 No class (out-of-town)



Project 01 proposal by 11:59pm
8 Tue, Oct 14 No class (Fall Break)





Thu, Oct 16 Document models πŸ”— β€œModel Cards for Model Reporting”
πŸ”— Llama 3.2 documentation on HuggingFace


πŸ“½οΈ slides 14
⌨️ ae 13

9 Tue, Oct 21 Version and deploy models using APIs


πŸ“½οΈ slides 15
⌨️ ae 14 - Python
⌨️ ae 14 - R
βœ… ae 14


Thu, Oct 23 Publish APIs using Docker + cloud hosting ⌨️ If you are completing assignments on your local computer, install Docker Desktop

πŸ“½οΈ slides 16
⌨️ ae 15 - Python
⌨️ ae 15 - R
βœ… ae 15
⌨️ hw 05
Project 01 EDA by 11:59pm
10 Tue, Oct 28 An introduction to LLMs πŸ‘©β€πŸ’» Generate your API keys for OpenAI and Anthropic

πŸ“½οΈ slides 17
⌨️ ae 16
βœ… ae 16


Wed, Oct 29




HW 05 by 11:59pm

Thu, Oct 30 Programming with LLMs


πŸ“½οΈ slides 18
⌨️ ae 17
βœ… ae 17
Project 01 draft by 11:59pm
11 Tue, Nov 4 Prompt engineering To be posted To be posted To be posted


Thu, Nov 6 Augmented generation To be posted To be posted To be posted

12 Tue, Nov 11 Tool calling To be posted To be posted To be posted


Thu, Nov 13 Interactive dashboards powered by LLMs To be posted To be posted To be posted

13 Tue, Nov 18 An AI guided introduction to Shiny To be posted To be posted To be posted


Thu, Nov 20 Creating interactive chat bots with Shiny To be posted To be posted To be posted

14 Tue, Nov 25
To be posted To be posted To be posted


Thu, Nov 27 No class (Thanksgiving Break) To be posted To be posted To be posted

15 Tue, Dec 2
To be posted To be posted To be posted


Thu, Dec 4 Wrap-up: Where to go from here To be posted To be posted To be posted


Thu, Dec 18 Project 02 presentation To be posted To be posted To be posted
Project 02 presentations at 12pm